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Microsoft thankfully decides that “MS Paint is here to stay”

Microsoft is playing hard to get. Yesterday (24 June 2017), the news that Microsoft Paint may be not be available on the next Windows update caused an uproar. Designers minimised their programmes and became keyboard warriors, voicing their love for the 32 year old desktop staple, proving that sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

Thankfully, we woke up this morning to the news that Microsoft has now decided that Paint will be available on the Windows Store. Megan Saunders, Microsoft’s general manager in 3D for Everyone Initiative and Window Experiences wrote a blogpost last night explaining: “Today, we’ve seen an incredible outpouring of support and nostalgia around MS Paint. If there’s anything we learned, it’s that after 32 years, MS Paint has a lot of fans. It’s been amazing to see so much love for our trusty old app. Amidst today’s commentary around MS Paint we wanted to take this opportunity to set the record straight, clear up some confusion and share some good news: “MS Paint is here to stay, it will just have a new home soon, in the Windows Store where it will be available for free.”

In the two years since Adobe Stock was rolled out, the Adobe archive has grown to an astounding 90 million+ assets, meaning that for any creative project you’re working on, Adobe can provide high quality photos, videos, graphics and illustrations.

“I’ve always been teaching and a part of education,” comments Dutch designer Jurgen Bey. “It’s the common place, it’s where all knowledge is shared. And it’s also the place where the future always exists. If you have students no matter how bad it goes with life or reality.” Such tenacious optimism for the future has illuminated Jurgen’s dual career as an influential designer and educator. Jurgen leads Studio Makkink & Bey in Rotterdam which works in applied art and public space projects, and he is also the director of the Sandberg Institute, the postgraduate program of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.

Founded in 1997 by Colette Roussaux, cult Parisian store Colette has – in its two decade lifetime – established itself as one of the world’s most influential hubs for compelling, cutting-edge fashion and design. With Colette’s daughter Sarah Andelman working as creative director it also became a leading light in illustration and graphic art, giving a platform to the creative industry’s renowned innovators and creators. So, when last week the store posted a statement on Instagram saying “all good things must come to an end” and it would be closing its doors on 20 December 2017, there was an outpouring of love, support and reminiscences from across the industry.

At the end of the academic year, graduates from a breadth of courses at Central Saint Martins, UAL showcase their work to the creative industries in an impressive pair of degree shows. Global marketing communications agency MullenLowe Group sees this as an opportunity to invest in the university’s emerging talent, by sponsoring the degree shows and running the MullenLowe NOVA Awards, now in its seventh year.

“I always say that I don’t have big ideas, I just have lots of little ones that fill the same amount of time,” explains London artist Kate Moross. “I much prefer to take things a little bit at a time and change things that way. I think change is lots of small steps, not necessarily always the big things.” This small-idea ethos has helped Kate forge a genre-defying career as a graphic artist: she founded the London design agency Studio Moross in 2012, started the vinyl label Isomorph Records, and penned the DIY guide Make Your Own Luck. Her work has spanned from music videos to designing the tour visuals for One Direction. “I very much don’t conform to what most people think of what a graphic designer would be,” Kate confesses.

The mystery that surrounds Aphex Twin is like no other, outside and within electronic music, a genre he has shaped over the past 20 years. A man of 18 different pseudonyms, the rumours that surround Richard D. James are absurd but often true. It is difficult to name another artist who encourages such hearsay as to whether he lives in a box structure on the Elephant and Castle roundabout, when he was actually living in abandoned bank office. He’s a musician who announces upcoming albums via blimps flying over London or by hiding a track list in a deep web server, an innovator across all aspects of his creative output. It comes as no surprise, the visuals of Aphex Twin have evolved with the increased sophistication of technology.